


one soft infested summer, me and juliet became friends

by pants2match



Category: Lost
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, DHARMA Initiative, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24734986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pants2match/pseuds/pants2match
Summary: He leans down and kisses between her shoulders:it’s for you.--au followingthatphone call
Relationships: Juliet Burke/James "Sawyer" Ford
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	one soft infested summer, me and juliet became friends

The phone rings beside her, dulled by the fog inside her skull.

She can’t remember exactly what he’d called her, but it was some large mammal who couldn’t be taken down by a tranquilliser dart, her heart kept thumping in her chest the same as it did when Amy reached out her arms to hold her healthy baby boy. He made her a “horse pill” of a White Russian, topping it off with a sprinkle of nutmeg like his momma would put on his warm milk to get him to sleep.

He leans down and kisses between her shoulders: _it’s for you_.

* * *

She realises, part-way through the conversation, that he’d never asked her to come check on Amy, or the baby. He hadn’t lured her to his home under false pretences, even suggested James join them (but no, he’d been roped into working three days on Hydra his last day off and she wasn’t going to let that happen today).

“You’ll be compensated, all wages earned, plus severance, and transport to wherever you want in the continental United States. You’ll have to sign a non-disclosure form on arrival in Ann Arbor. Juliet, I’m sorry. If it were up to me, things would just go back to the way they were—”

* * *

It’s somehow freeing, the absence of choice, having someone else decide your fate. They’d never been asked if they wanted to move, their dad was too sick for there to be a choice in who they lived with, Ed was controlling and manipulative and maybe it’s just comfortable, familiar.

He’s whisking up eggs when she returns (home). Raw bacon sizzles in one pan, and a pat of butter in another. He asks after Amy and the baby, whipping the fork back and forth, keeping an eye on the rapidly melting butter.

When she doesn’t answer he looks over to her, leaning back against the door, taking in the scene before her, trying with all her might to hold it all in. He turns the burners off and pulls her into him, strong and solid and warm. He smells of flour and she takes a breath, soaking in a perfect moment one last time.

* * *

“If I had done nothing, and something had happened to Amy, or the baby, I wouldn’t have been able to stay, and then I guess if I hadn’t been able to save them—”

* * *

(He listens to her footsteps on the floorboards, further, further, the front door, open, shut.

Twenty seconds.

He’s not thinking about _consequences_. Not thinking about anything that may come next, except:

did Toby ever return that crowbar,

and

should he make pancakes, or run over to Amelia’s and borrow her waffle iron.

He finds the crowbar quick, just inside of what used to be his room.

See, the shoebox isn’t a secret. Before it was _their_ room, it was Juliet’s, and before there was a shoebox, there was a warped floorboard she’d bump her big toe into every so often—

Then one day he and Jin have a run in with a rogue Other, and now he’s pocketed a Glock with an almost-full clip and realises he’s got a place to stash it for the next thirty years.

And every so often one of them would think of something else to put in the shoebox. A couple of polaroids from the “not _4_ _th_ _of July_ , but” barbeque. Juliet looks through the kitchen drawers and finds the code-cracker she’d made to help teach Jin English — she thinks Sun might get a kick out of it, an artefact; because she’s decided that Sun is alive, she’s willing it to be so because time is relative and… something about quantum physics Daniel kept saying that sounded vaguely familiar. It all goes in the shoebox.

So when he comes across a jewellery catalogue in January, well… It’s like an umbrella or a condom; even if placing the order makes his head spin and his stomach lurch, it’s better to have it and not need it…

And he decides, the moment he hears that door close he decides that, yes, he does need it.)

* * *

He dries her eyes with the clean end of the tea towel.

“So we buy Microsoft—” this isn’t the first time he brings this up, Microsoft, IBM; he sent Daniel off with a list of every year the Cowboys won the Super Bowl and, reluctantly, the years they didn’t, “—in six months we bet it all on Dallas,” he jostles her slightly, trying for a smile.

“ _James_ ,” she takes a breath, can’t quite meet his eyes, “you—“ she _tries_ , but it just won’t come out, “—just because—“

“No way you’re leaving me behind, Blondie,” she looks at him with such… devastation. He has a life here, a job, he’s become the person he was supposed to be, who’s she to take him away from all this? “Who’s gonna have your back?”

And she laughs, it escapes her in a breath and lets flow fresh tears, free to stream down her cheeks because, suddenly, he’s gone.

“I ain’t losin’ you,” he’s in the kitchen now, reaching into the junk drawer; he plucks out the little velvet bag and holds it up like a prize, smiling, and feeling like an idiot for ever questioning that this is what he wants, “hell, I’ll stay with you forever, if you let me.”

* * *

(Elopement isn’t really possible here, but Horace and Amy tried their best.

It’s not that they were a secret, and they throw a party bigger than New Year’s that weekend, but after losing Paul, and no one hiding they fact that, yes, they’ve noticed the ever-growing bump, he wanted it to be private. He had the paperwork faxed in under the highest security clearance, the ring was one of his few possessions from his life before DHARMA.

He asks her on the beach, the come home and sign the paperwork.

On Monday evening Amy intercepts Juliet’s walk home from the motor pool.

She’s beaming, and at first, Juliet figures it’s just a newlywed-finally-out-of-the-first-trimester glow.

She’s opaque enough not to _totally_ give it up; it’s not until Juliet notices the dresser’s been moved that she even considers it was something more than Amy (in her lovely Amy way) shoving her happiness in her face.

Juliet isn’t expecting it any time soon: it’s just an option. James _needs_ options; before, he always made sure he had an out, he never wanted to get backed into a corner—or under a bed.)

* * *

“Juliet,” she wipes her face, cleans her snotty upper lip with the tea towel. He just keeps smiling, chuckles to himself softly, “never got to do this before,” she laughs again and smiles up at him, then down at him as he lowers himself to one knee.

She reaches out and pushes his hair from in front of his eyes. She’s never been able to decide if they’re more green, or blue.

“In 1977, or even 2004, on this goddamn island, or—will you marry me?”

(It sounds ridiculous coming out of his own mouth, still, after so much time, after everything, he doesn’t quite believe he’s doing this, for real, with a clear head and a real goddamn engagement ring between his fingers. He’s not scared anymore, of loving and being loved; of who he might be—she didn’t change him, not one bit, she let him be who he was always supposed to be, and he _likes_ who he was always supposed to be, enough to ask someone to be with him for as long as they both shall live.)

She tilts her head, rubs her thumb across his temple, and smile—beams in a way he’s seen so many times before, before they were a _they_ , and so many times since.

“Yes, James,” a laugh bubbles up through her, “of course, _of course_ ,”

**Author's Note:**

> i got the idea for this literally a year ago and only just really made something out of it, but, alas, i have trouble putting a button on things.
> 
> this is also the first thing of substance i've written in months. feels good.


End file.
